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Eventbrite's Kevin Hartz

Most successful entrepreneurs don’t start their careers knowing the “right people” to help them succeed. Or at least that’s what I’ve found in writing about entrepreneurship for 15 years or so.

Yet many of the self-made innovators who eventually score big wins in startup hubs like Silicon Valley manage to assemble great teams of executives, advisors, and angel investors—the type of folks whose presence, in turn, inspires confidence, and multimillion dollar investments, from venture capitalists.

What’s the secret to attracting the type of talent that makes investors believe that a business has both exciting vision and the ability to execute on it?

Talking with serial entrepreneur Kevin Hartz, 42, co-founder of online event registration startup Eventbrite—as well as cofounder of the hot online money transfer company Xoom Corp., where he’s now a member of the board of directors—reminded me that it's not just a matter of hanging out at the right parties.

For Hartz, who attracted investment capital from Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, at Xoom Corp., it’s been about building deep wells of trust among key players in the tech world by working alongside of them for years.

Hartz wasn’t exactly hanging out in elite tech circles when he majored in history at Stanford and followed up by studying British history in Oxford as graduate student. But when he came back home to California, in the late 90s, he wanted to get in on the action in the burgeoning tech scene. “That was where all the brainpower was concentrating,” says Hartz.

So, after immersing himself in the world of King George III, he got himself hired as a product manager at Silicon Graphics, the legendary high-tech firm founded by Jim Clark, who later went on to co-found Netscape.

It was a big change from studying history in academia. However, at Silicon Graphics he became friendly with colleagues who later teamed up with him to co-found ConnectGroup, in 1998. The startup, which provided high-speed web access to the hotel industry, got snapped up the same year by LodgeNet.

“I took those gains and started doing angel investing,” he says. Through his network, he came across the company that later became PayPal—and invested early.

It wasn’t just a good financial deal. It also provided the attentive student of business with a view of how Silicon Valley's elite operates. He paid close attention to the attention PayPal’s cofounders Peter Thiel and Max Levchin gave to luring top entrepreneurial and technology talent.

“Peter and Max attracted this brilliant team,” he recalls. The management included Reid Hoffman, who later founded LinkedIn; Roelof Botha, who became a partner of VC firm Sequoia Capital and David O. Sacks, who later started the private social network provider Yammer. The presence of minds like this undoubtedly made other smart people want to come on board, too.